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User blog:Reaper with no name/Old Stuff 4: Why Giant Robots are Not Practical in the Real World (and Why it Doesn't Matter)
Original Post 171.6.193.224 wrote: Why didn't they work on Kaijus? Striker Eureka has missiles that clearly worked on them, why didn't it occur to anyone to put turrets of these missiles on the wall, around the city or I don't know, AROUND THE PORTAL? And would anyone care to explain how conventional missiles are less effective than punching or using cargo ships as bludgeon? Reaper's Response From a logical perspective, there is indeed no reason why one can't simply mount anti-kaiju missiles on any given system. But by the same token, there's no logical reason why a giant robot would even work. To begin with, the square-cube law makes it impossible for anything with a recognizably humanoid shape to even exist at such a large scale. Its spine would snap in half. And even if you could solve that problem, the pressure from all that weight focused on such a relatively small area would cause it to sink into concrete as if it were quicksand. And even if you could solve that problem, the movement of a giant robot would cause uncontrollable motion sickness to the pilots that would prevent them from properly operating it. And even if you could solve that problem, the G-forces from the movements and blows coming at the robots would liquify the pilots. And even if you could solve that problem... Basically, these are questions that we are supposed to ignore, because the answers to them undermine the entire concept. In other words, giant robots function on rule of cool. Just accept it and enjoy the show. Response to Reaper's Response Given to Provide Context 72.191.63.182 wrote: whats exactly is the square cube in english since looking it up I get a bunch of PHD grade material Reaper's Response to the Response to his...Eh, Forget it! As you scale something up in size, volume increases faster than surface area. One of the effects of this is that the pressure on a given area increases faster than the strength of that area as things scale up. This is why an elephant's legs are much thicker relative to its body than that of a mouse (the legs of a mouse are sticks compared to its body; an elephants legs? Not so much). This is also why you don't see insects larger than, well, insects. The simpler body structure simply doesn't work at higher scales. The simple organs can't cope with the demands of a body that is much larger relative to them (which is why all larger creatures have highly specialized organs; they compensate for the fact that the body is larger relative to them by being much more efficient), and the exoskeletons would be too heavy (giant or even human-sized insects would be crushed under the weight of their own exoskeletons). This is why larger creatures have endoskeletons. Scale up even further, and the same thing happens to a humanoid shape. A giant human would snap in half at the spine. And even if they didn't, the width of the legs that would be needed to support it would be so thick that you wouldn't really be able to call them legs, because each "leg" would be thicker than the entire body. Those aren't legs; they're giant masses of bone and flesh attached to the hips. And keep in mind, the act of bipedal walking requires a person to temporarily put all their weight on one leg while they move their other foot forwards. So the legs of a "real" giant robot would have to be even thicker still! Good luck walking with those le- I mean, blobs. Heck, I'm not even sure a bipedal walking motion would even be possible with legs that thick. It would be kind of like trying to walk using your buttcheeks as legs. And this is without even considering the massive stability issues that a giant bipedal machine would possess, or the massive power requirements to move those leg-blobs (which would dwarf the power consumption of everything else), or any of the dozen other problems that would probably arise from a giant bipedal machine. Nevermind the fact that the whole idea is simply unnecessary, because any weapon you can mount on a giant bipedal robot, you can mount on a tank, aircraft, or fixed emplacement (the former two of which would be far more mobile). But those things are only problems in the real world. In movies, it's all about telling a cool story. And giant robots are cool. It allows us to scale up our battles to truly epic heights and make them larger than life, without taking out the human factor. So, just as we pretend that giant monsters are possible (in reality, they would suffer from all of the same problems as a giant robot), just as we pretend that scientists would develop technology to link two human brains together instead of just using remote control, just as we pretend that weapons mounted on a giant robot are more effective than those that aren't (even if there should logically be no difference), just as we pretend that anything we're watching on that screen is anything more than a bunch of actors and computer-generated images, we also pretend that giant bipedal robots are possible. Only after we have done that can we truly enjoy the movie. Category:Blog posts